Shadow Hawk

© i960 by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any mechanical means, including mimeograph and tape recorder, without permission in writing from the publisher.

c.12.64

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-10247 Printed in the United States of America

Almost two thousand years before the birth of Christ, a conquering army marched out of the heart of Asia Minor. The conquerors overran other lands and peoples unchecked as they moved westward, for their warriors possessed a new and effective weapon—the horse-drawn chariot. Those who tried to defend their countries against these newcomers were swiftly battered to the dust.

Among the defeated nations was Egypt, already very old and once mighty. So bitter were the Egyptians against the alien invaders that when they were finally able to expel them generations later, they attempted—with excellent results—to erase all trace of their occupation of the Nile Valley. To this day, therefore, we do not know who these Hyksos were, where they came from, or how long they ruled—merely that they held Egypt for a time, introduced the horse to that land, and were accounted worse than devils by its inhabitants. This was a time of intrigue, of danger, of dissension within the ranks of the Egyptians themselves, since the more conservative of the Pharaoh's officials favored a token tribute to the Hyksos and no open break. It was also a time when a young man might dare great things. Highborn Egyptians entered officers' training at about ten years of age and became active combatants at fourteen or fifteen. Both of the royal princes who led the first attacks upon the Hyksos were in their teens.

Only in the far south of Egypt and in Nubia (modern Sudan) did the old Egyptian way of life continue feebly during the years of alien occupation. Nubia—the Land of the Bow, ruled by a viceroy of the Pharaoh—furnished archers

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for the Desert Scouts, a corps famed for over a thousand years in Egyptian records. Their skill was so widely known and respected that in foreign tongues the name for Egyptian was also the word for bowman. And it was in Thebes, the ancient capital of the south, that a successful revolt against the Hyksos took fire in 1590 B.C. Egyptians, once again united, beat back the enemy and established an empire that dominated the southern Mediterranean for centuries to come.

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PENINSULA ^Aicdite. J^JceMoen Beni Hasan THEBES KHARGA OASIS El Kab EdFu - ■: ° Kom Ombo -rV lanLiniz /._r*flo Elephantine oSy^^.-First Cataract-^. [A™anl

LAND OF (THE BOW

[Viadi Haifa]

Prese-nt-day reference, points shown thus ■■ [Aswan]

Se-mha

AVAR1S -

t-Ss-Abhri LOWER iGerzeh 'Meidun

O AKHETATON (Tell-el- Arnarna) K t ?=?' -NgTasa ^ f UPPEREGYPT AbydosVy ri

Delr EI-Bahri. Medineb Habu Abu Sim bet

CONTENTS

Border Patrol 3 Pharaoh Summons 15 Into the Jackal's Jaws 29 What Is Thebes to Us? 42

Kamose, Commander of Chariots 54 Eyes and Ears for Pharaoh 67

"Lion" Hunt 80

Pharaoh's Guardsmen 93 The Jackal Barks 106 Slaves of Anubis 119

Pharaoh Departs to the Horizon 133 Re, Strong in Judgment 147

Up the Flail 16o I car the Seafarer 174 Nebet of Neferusi 186 Over the Walls 199 A Matter of Tribute 2 11 Beautiful in Victory— 224

RAUOT EP: son of Ptahhotep, who was Viceroy of Nubia, and of his secondary wife, the Lady Tuya, who was heiress of the Striking Hawk Nome (similar to a modern duchy) in Egypt. Since inheritance was through the mother, Rahotep was, by birth, Nomarch (Duke) of the Hawk and of the first rank of nobility, though his lands were now occupied by the Hyksos.

UNIS: Rahotep's half brother, son of the Viceroy's Great Wife, the Lady Meri-Mut of a noble Nubian-Egyptian family.

KHET I: Rahotep's foster brother, a Nubian and an underofficer in the Desert Scouts.

MET HEN: once commander of the Hawk's regiment, a noble who had followed the Lady Tuya to Nubia after the defeat of her father's army.

PRINCE KAMOSE: "The Royal Heir," eldest son of the Pharaoh and a noted chariot commander. He came to the throne upon the sudden death of his father, and his speech of defiance against his timid council is in existence today. Under his leadership the Egyptian forces won their first victory.

PRINCE AHMOSE: his younger brother, who became Pharaoh in turn and founded the great Eighteenth Dynasty, which made Egypt an empire. He was a military genius and a well-qualified ruler who established an unbeatable army and united Egypt in new prosperity.

principal characters

T HE ROYAL MOT HER, QUEEN T ET I-SHERI: heiress of the Theban line. Grandmother of Kamose and Ahmose.

T HE ROYAL WIFE, QUEEN AH-HET PE: daughter of Teti-Sheri. According to Egyptian custom, she was the wife of her brother, Sekenenre III, first of the active fighters against the Hyksos. Mother of the Princes Kamose and Ahmose.

PRINCE T ET I: "Teti the Handsome" fanned the fires of revolt in Nubia when the Theban rulers marched against the Hyksos, cutting loose the rich southern province and making it his kingdom. He was successful for only a short period. Ahmose crushed his revolt and re-united Nubia to Egypt.

LORD NEREB: a high-ranking officer in the newly formed royal army, serving under the Royal Heir, Prince Kamose.

KHEPHREN: "Voice of Amon," high priest in the Temple of Amon-Re at Semna. Since Amon-Re was the patron god of Thebes, his priesthood supported the Theban rulers. Though there were numerous gods in Egypt, Amon-Re, symbolizing the power of life inherent in the sun, was widely reverenced.

T OT HOT EP: "Voice of Anubis," high priest of the Temple of Anubis at Thebes. Anubis was the god who watched over the dead, and his priests defended the tombs and offered sacrifices for those who lay in them. They were rumored to have prophetic powers and in the very ancient days of Egypt had the right to slay ritually a Pharaoh too old or ill to rule.

PEN-SET I: priest of Anubis at Semna, uncle of Unis.

VIZIER ZAU: most powerful of all government officials, the Vizier was answerable only to the Pharaoh, and in his hands many of the administrative duties rested. At this time, the Pharaoh could appoint any able man to the post,

principal characters

though formerly it could be held only by his own son.

GENERAL SHESHANG: officer belonging to the conservative party at the Theban court. Though supreme army commanders had to be of royal blood, able men could rise in the ranks of officers and were to be feared by weak Pharaohs for their power.

Xlll

ICAR: sea captain from the northern Mediterranean enslaved by the Hyksos.

1

Chapter 1

No wind arose over the parched land to drive away the overpowering stench that billowed out in a dirty yellowish smoke from the filthy huts of the squalid Kush village. The Nubian- Egyptian archers of the Desert Scouts went about the business of setting fire to the huts with the competence of long practice. When the roofs of untidy thatch or tenting of badly cured hides had fallen to ash, they would pry apart the stones of the circular walls, and another raider nest would cease to exist as a border menace—for a while.

The Kush were like ants, wearily decided Rahotep, the young captain of Scouts, who stood on a hillock that raised the chieftain's hut above its fellows. You could plant your sandal forcibly on a hill, or even go so far as to dig up the tunneled earth beneath, getting bitten in the process. But within a day or two another city would spring into being in its place.

A curl of smoke wreathed his head, and he coughed. But he did not retreat from his post. He knew—as did every one of the outwardly unconcerned archers under his command—that there were hostile eyes watching—with hate and, he hoped, a little wholesome fear. Though a tangle of dark, barbarian bodies lay among the huts, not ail the Kush of this village had ended with the red war arrows of the patrol in them. And Rahotep had not ordered a pursuit for captives—there was too long a sprint across the desert wastes to the fort to be burdened with prisoners.

"They will not hole up here again, Lord!" There was the ring of honest satisfaction in that observation. Kheti, Raho- tep's underofficer, swung up the hillock with a hunter's loose- jointed tread. The Nubian towered a good six inches over the slighter, more delicately made Egyptian, for the captain was of the old stock from the north with no mixture of blood. The tall bow, which only Kheti could string, projected above both their heads as a regimental standard. When the smoke caught Kheti, he grimaced and spat.

"They will find another nest soon enough!" Rahotep said.

"So be it!" Kheti had the cheerfulness of one who is ready to accept orders and carry them out, but who is not required to plan any campaigns on his own. "Do men not know that to a cruising Hawk none of such pestilent holes will long lie hidden?"

Rahotep's level black brows knitted under the straight edge of his striped linen headdress. The reminder of his lost heritage in Egypt was irritating. It was folly to claim to be the lord of the Striking Hawk Nome when that holding had been for a generation in the firm grip of the Hyksos invaders. He was only Rahotep, a landless, and almost friendless, officer of Scouts, not the Hawk. Even that title was used against him jeeringly now by his half brother Unis and those who would flatter Unis. "Shadow Ilawk" they called him—lord of a shadow land.

A few more roofs fell with puffs of denser smoke, showers of sparks. As the archers worked away at the walls, Rahotep measured the angle of the sun with a frontiersman's knowledge. They must be away before nightfall.

"A short space yet." Kheti caught his glance aloft. "It is a very great pity we were not able to send Haptke to his unsavory fathers. But one cannot always have the full smile of fortune."

"Now!" The captain thrust the baton-flail, which was the symbol of his authority, into the belt of his short kilt and gripped the bronze sistrum-rattle, used to alert men in the field. He swung it with a sharp crack of the wrist, bringing

from its wire-strung beads the buzz of an angered viper.

As the archers assembled in a loose line of march, Kheti pushed into his commander's hand a small clay image he had fashioned when the call for this patrol had come to the fort. Rahotep held it out in the sunlight, well aware that hidden eyes saw it and that hidden ears would hear every word he had to say in the tongue of the Kush.

"Haptke." He gave the Kush chieftain the name by which he was known to the Scouts. "Haptke, son of Taji, and all those who follow at his heels, his warriors, his swift runners, liis friends, those who eat from his pots and lie in the shadow of his hut, who rebel, who lay waste the land, who kill with ax and knife, spear and arrow, who may think of wasting the land or killing, upon them and their lord Haptke lies now this curse. And as I do this, so will it be done unto Haptke and those I have named—in the sight of Amon-Re, Lord of the High Heavens, and of His son upon earth, Pharaoh, Lord of the Two Lands!"

Though the Kush speech was harsh, Rahotep managed to give it the roll of a temple chant. He raised the clay figure over his head and hurled it against the flame-marked wall of Haptke's late headquarters. The sun-dried clay burst into powdery rubble, and the archers gave cries of approval. Men had done their best against these raiders; now the aid of the gods had been invoked as well.

They left the ruined village with the famous distance-eating trot of their corps, herding with them the spoils they had taken—asses and a brace of fine Sudanese greyhounds, now snapping and growling but towed along by leashes in the hands of their new masters. The archers were inclined to regard this as a successful foray, but Rahotep would have gladly traded four times the value of their booty for the certainty of Haptke's death. They might have destroyed the den, but the lion had gone free to ravage again.

Sun-browned vegetation of the dry season closed about them as they threaded a path beside a narrow water course where the stream had sunk to a series of scummed pools. Disturbed insects arose in clouds, and Rahotep used his captain's flail for a flywhisk as their pace carried them on steadily. The regular thud of sandaled feet was echoed by the sharp clatter of asses' hoofs on water-smoothed gravel.

They had reached that section of scrub land bordering the true desert where red clay was broken by stone outcrops when a shadow swept across the ground, bringing Rahotep's attention skyward. Over that unclouded bowl glided his own symbol, a hawk. It appeared to hover above the column of men and animals, as if in that dusty company it had found the prey it sought.

Coasting silently, the bird moved ahead of the archers almost like a guide. It was losing altitude, drifting toward the ridges of sandy hills through which their northern road ran. Then—in an instant —it swooped and was out of sight.

"The Messenger of the Great One hunts." Kheti's voice came from behind the captain. "Wish the Servant of Re, Horus-of-the-Keen-Eyes, luck as good as ours has been this day, Lord."

Rahotep slowed to a stop and whirred his sistrum in an imperative jangle, which halted the whole line of men. No, he had not been mistaken! He heard again a thin, yowling cry from beyond, a sound he could not identify.

Dagger in hand, he moved up the slope, picking his way with a stalker's caution. Kheti, belt ax unslung, was at his heels. They went down to their hands and knees as they mounted the rise behind which the hawk had disappeared. Then, lying flat, they edged forward to look down upon a scene so amazing that Kheti uttered a grunt of pure amazement.

There was a cave hollowed in the drop below them, and before it, a ledge of stone, scoured free of earth and sand by the wind. Stiff and contorted, her muzzle a mask of snarling, death-frozen hate, a gaunt female leopard lay there, the matted fur about a chewed arrow shaft in her haunch bearing witness to the long hours of her dying.

A quarter-grown yellow-furred cub, as stiff in death as its mother, huddled against the wall by the cave mouth. And on its back perched the hawk, its sharp-beaked head turning slowly from side to side as it considered intelligently something before it. The bird's attitude was not that of hunting eagerness or of rage, but one of curiosity, as it watched a small bundle of black fur.

The black fur ball opened its kitten mouth and spat, arched its back, and raised a claw-extended paw to menace the feathered intruder. But to Rahotep's amazement the winged hunter did not retaliate with punishing talons or stabbing beak. Its fierce head lifted and it voiced a scream, beating the heat- hazed air with its wings, though it did not fly.

Rahotep topped the rise, but his descent was more rapid than he had planned as clay crumbled under his weight and he coasted down in a miniature avalanche of sun-baked earth. The hawk screamed hoarsely for a second time, and the captain made a propitiating sign with his dusty fingers.

The hawk took to the air, spiraling steadily up into the late afternoon sky. Rahotep watched it go, fearless and free, before he turned to the small, belligerent warrior in black fur.

This was no helpless baby creature, but a growing cub with open eyes and a wild thing's temper. Though it must be starving, its little body showing a rack of bones beneath its fur, it was alert for his every move, as quick with its hissed warning as it had been when facing the hawk.

The rattle of gravel and more clay announced the arrival of Kheti. Granting the cub full room for fear of frightening it into a retreat that would carry it over the ledge, the tall Nubian surveyed the dead leopardess. He prodded the body with his ax and stooped to inspect the chewed shaft protruding from her body.

"Kush. But it is an old wound. She has been dead two days at least."

Rahotep made a swift pounce. His fingers nipped the loose skin behind the cub's head, and the cub voiced the same yowling cry that had first drawn his attention from a distance. He picked it

up, its four paws sawing wildly at the air.

"Horus pleases to give a gift, Lord," Kheti remarked. "Now I wonder why. Gifts from the Great Ones who rule from beyond the sky often carry mixed luck with them. And a leopard who has a hide akin in color to that of the Kush— though such are rare—is notably vile of temper. However, this is so young a cub, he may yet be brought to follow at the heel and obey on the hunting trail or in war. He is strong to live—aye, and fight, too—when his sister and dam have died. But shield those claws, small as they are, Lord, if you do not wish to bear some smarting battle wounds!" He laughed as the enraged cub wrinkled its small mask in a snarl and continued to beat furiously at the air.

Rahotep shook out the folds of his cloak awkwardly with his left hand. Kheti seized one corner of the stout length of cloth and threw it about the struggling captive, helping to make a heaving bundle that the captain pressed against his chest as he reclimbed the heights and went down to join his waiting men.

He jogged ahead to the ass herd. Yes, he was right. There was a mare with a very small colt running beside her. And with the assistance of several would-be leopard tamers, and some expenditure of effort, he acquired a measure of milk in an earthenware cup. As the party moved on, the captain carried the now limp and exhausted cub in the crook of his arm, lowering a strip of linen first into the cup one of the archers held ready and then putting it into that small, panting mouth. The cub caught the idea quickly enough, sucking avidly, only its black head protruding from the cloak wrappings.

"A strong one indeed, Lord," commented the cup bearer. "Shall I try for more milk now? Hori has the she-ass ready in a leading rope."

Rahotep shook his head. "We cannot delay again this side of the river. Once across that—before Re departs from the sky—"

He saturated the rag with the last few drops of milk and felt the persistent tug of the cub's mouthing. They marched with all the precautions proper in hostile country—with an alert rear guard and flankers out. The Desert Scouts were well seasoned patrolmen. But the captain did not intend to make camp until they reached a site he had earlier marked for that purpose because of its defenses. Haptke and his band of border raiders had a reputation for predawn attacks. Not that the Kush could ever hope to catch any company of Scouts unprepared—as they could the unwary farmers of the northern fields. But Rahotep had long ago learned that, in the border wastes with the Kush nosing about like lean black hounds, no wise man took chances.

Their trail dipped into a cup of faded green about the dwindled river, where the mud of the banks was cut again and again by the hoofs and pads of the animals that came there to drink. The captain took the fording as slowly as his sense of duty allowed, savoring to the full the soft wash of water about his feet and legs. But that welcome moisture dried all too quickly as they breasted the slope beyond and came to the hill, with its crown of ruins, which he had set for their goal.

The defaced statue of a seated king frowned over them toward the lowlands, facing in challenge the border and the lands of the Kush. Clay and sand had silted up about its base, but in the sunset's

red glow Rahotep could still read the royal name—Sesostris, the Theban Pharaoh, first of his name, who had added Nubia to the holdings of Egypt almost a thousand years before the captain had been born. A Pharaoh of pharaohs indeed, before whom the Kush had groveled and slunk away like wasteland scavengers. If only such a one ruled today! The leader of Scouts raised his baton in salute as he passed that brooding king of stone.

Time had breached the walls of the ancient fort; its inner courts were half filled with rubble. But those same walls were more protection against a rush attack than the open desert hillocks beyond.

One of the archers who had been on flank duty came in with a gazelle slung over his shoulder, and a fire was made. The loose animals were turned into the roofless enclosure of the old granary. They would be watered sparingly, but tonight they must go hungry.

Rahotep began his rounds of the encampment, inspecting the picket lines of the burden asses, stationing or checking upon sentries. Then at last he came to stand at the foot of the statue once again, looking south. There was no movement, not even of a dust devil raised by a wind puff, between the fort and the river. But he doubted that they lacked trailers. Haptke's men lurked there, ready to avenge their defeat on any straggler they could cut off, eager to spear-point an attack if the chances of success seemed good.

The captain turned to the west, where the sun was a scarlet fire on the horizon, still almost too brilliant to face. He stripped himself of his emblems of command, the sistrum from his wrist and the baton-flail, and laid them on the sand. Then he lacked off his sandals and stood humbly before the greatest of Overlords, the sun. Rahotep looked straight into that blazing glory of red and gold before he made the salute of a warrior to his commander, his palms earthward at knee level. Having done so, the Egyptian straightened once more, proud in his heritage as a believer in Re, and chanted:

"I give praise when I see Thy beauty,

I hymn Re when He sets."

From the camp came the answering boom of the archers' rich voices:

"Who hearest him that prays,

Who hearest the entreaties of him who calls upon Thee,"

"Who comest at the voice of him who utters Thy name—" the captain intoned, and thought that the words were reechoed, as if by the stone figure beside him. "Thy name— Thy name!"

Rahotep drew his upper arm wearily across his grimed face, longing for a few comforts—water to wash in, fresh clothing. To such simple luxuries had his world shrunk during the past five years. But tomorrow, if Re favored them, he would have those again when they reached the fort.

He gathered up sistrum and flail and went down into camp, seating himself cross-legged on the mat Kheti had spread for him. There was another cup of milk to be fed to the cub. But when the captain took up his own portion of roast meat, the small furry head turned in his direction, the little mouth opened in shrill complaint, and tiny teeth tore eagerly at the shred he proffered.

"That is good," Kheti commented. "This one was almost weaned. He shall be the easier to raise for that. We have had a profitable foray this time, Lord. It will be long before Haptke can make trouble again—if he ever can. And a Great One has been moved to honor you with a gift—that very Great One who is the totem of your own clan—"

The young officer smiled with a bitterness that made an odd shadow on his youthful face. "Did you yourself not say, Kheti, that gifts from Great Ones are to be suspect, that they sometimes bring with them mixed fortune?"

"True enough, Lord. But it is also true that when a man's fortune has long been dark, then any change may be for the better—"

A jackal barked in the desert. Rahotep tensed, and the leopard cub hissed at the sudden tightening of the captain's grip upon its body.

"You believe that my fortune has been dark?" "Lord, are we not foster brothers between whom there is little ever to be hidden? Do I not well know why you, the son of the Viceroy, run the desert with the Scouts and do not instead take your ease and hold a measure of power in Semna with your equals? And when your brother, the Lord Unis, comes to be Viceroy in his turn, it shall fare even worse with you. On that day, my brother, it would be well to depart from this land, lest you be made to eat dust, and the eating of dust is not for the Hawk—"

"I am not the Hawk!" Rahotep countered, but his control was better as he put down the cub and ran his fingers soothingly along the curve of the small feline head. "There is no such nome, there is no longer an Egypt as there was. Have not the Hyksos, those sons of Set—those eaters of offal, followers of the Eternal Darkness—overrun the land? They have broken asunder the dwellings of the Great Ones, defiled the sacred places, slain those who would stand against them for the honor of the Two Lands—"

Kheti shrugged. "To every king his day. These defilers of the north have sat overlong in the high seat, and they do not sit there by the graces of your Amon-Re. Suppose someone arose strong enough to tumble them from that seat; would not those who marched at his back rise with him? And if the Hyksos are driven forth from the lands they have stolen, would not such lands come again into the hands of those with a rightful claim upon them?

Do

"You have been talking with Methen," Rahotep half accused.

"Brother, you have friends as well as enemies in this land. The Commander Methen served your grandfather, the Hawk.

wishes to see her son in his rightful place? And there is no future for you in Nubia. Should your father depart to his horizon—may Dedun of the Many Goats forbid that disaster"—Kheti made a warding-off- evil sign with crossed fingers—"then shall the Lord Unis rule this land and you shall be nothing. For his mother, the Lady Meri-Mut, has mighty kinsmen to favor her son. Also they are allied with Prince Teti—"

"Teti is close to a traitor! He sees Nubia as a separate kingdom with the crown on his head!" "That is as it may be, brother. But neither he nor the Lady Meri-Mut forgets that one of their ancestors sat on the throne of Egypt itself for a space and held the Crook and the Flail of Pharaoh over north and south together. In troubled times such as these, that might happen again. To be king in Nubia is to be more than halfway to Pharaoh in Egypt, if a man is strong and daring enough! We do not want to see Unis viceroy here—would Egypt profit if Teti sat in her high seat?" "But my father has set his face against my going north—" "Aye, the Viceroy has no wish to lose an officer upon whom he can depend."

Rahotep shivered, though as yet the chill wind of nightfall had not found them out. It was true. In the eyes of his father, Ptahhotep, Viceroy of Nubia, he was merely a responsible officer of Scouts. Since his mother's death, he had been cut off from the life of his father's court, a fact that weighed heavily on his spirit. He had been sent from one border fort to another and had grimly centered his existence upon his profession, learning from the archers with whom he coursed the desert all they had to teach.

There was no love between him and his half brother, Unis. Unis was his father's heir, for he was the son of the Great Wife, the Lady Meri-Mut, heiress of an important family of mixed Nubian-Egyptian blood. Rahotep's mother, the Lady

Tuya, had been only a secondary wife, though she was indeed heiress of the Striking Hawk Nome in the Egypt her son had never seen. She had been sent south to safety after the invading Hyksos had overrun her father's holding and had killed him in a last battle.

While Rahotep's mother lived, he had been given all she had to grant him, the ancient learning, the training of a nobleman, everything that could be taught by Hentre, her father's administrator-scribe, and Methen, who had once commanded the Hawk force in the field.

After her death, Rahotep had been dispatched to the frontier posts, ostensibly to further his military training. It had been done under the seal of the Viceroy—that remote man who he found it difficult to believe was, in truth, his father.

Ptahhotep had long been under pressure to throw aside the title, Viceroy of the Pharaoh, and rule in his own name in Nubia. But he had never done so. He must know, however, that when he died, Unis would not be content to remain "Royal Son of the South," but would strive to a greater title and fuller power. Yet of late there had been tales drifting south from Thebes that a new Pharaoh had mounted the high seat, one ready to don the blue crown of war against the invaders. Methen had talked restlessly of that. If Theban rulers did rise again—! Rahotep stirred. He had always been moved by Methen's stories of past glories, by the older man's urging for action against the Hyksos. Yet his orders, under the Viceroy's seal, held him to the frontier of the far south.

Now, again, came the bark of a jackal, repeated thrice. Rahotep was on his feet, gazing into the dark. He heard the challenge of a sentry, and then the rattle of someone hurrying through the rubble-choked ways of the old fort.

A runner, his almost naked body coated with dust, pattered into the circle of firelight and stood with heaving chest.

He saluted the captain and then stooped to pinch up dust to throw upon his twisted headcloth.

"Grieve, Lord. The beloved of Re has gone to his horizon. The Viceroy Ptahhotep lives now only in the sunset!"

Rahotep froze. Then mechanically he bent in turn to gather up a handful of the gritty clay and smear it across his face in mourning.

"Blessed be Re, Who gathers His children into life everlasting." He made the conventional answer. But somehow he could not believe what he had just heard. Ptahhotep had always been remote, as remote almost as Pharaoh. But in Raho- tep's world he had been a secure fixture. The captain could not imagine a Nubia in which his father did not rule.

Chapter 2

PHARAOH SUMMONS

"When did the Lord Ptahhotep depart this life?" Rahotep did not know what inner suspicion prompted Kheti to ask that question. But the answer was as startling as a Kush arrow between one's shoulder blades.

"He has been beyond the horizon these thirty days and he will be laid in the place prepared"— the runner's lips moved silently as if he were engaged in some calculation—"three days from this sunset."

Rahotep stared, astounded. "But it takes seventy days to properly prepare the body—" he began almost stupidly, and then licked his lips to taste the flatness of the mourning dust. To hurry the burial of a great lord in this manner was unheard of, and he was alerted to danger as he might have been by a sentry's warning.

"It is said that the haste is necessary because the Lord Ptah- hotep died of poison from a sand thing he trod upon in the garden," explained the runner delicately.

"Thirty days," repeated Kheti. There was a metallic note in his voice. "And only now are the tidings brought to the Lord Rahotep. Where have you dallied on the road, runner?" His hand shot out, fixing upon the other's bare shoulder. On his face there was a look many a delinquent archer would have recognized and feared.

"I am not out of Semna," the man sputtered. "The Commander Methen is at Kah-hi and I am of his sending. And this also he told me, Lord." He looked beyond Kheti to Rahotep. "That you might know the truth was in my words—to say to you, 'Remember that which you wear on your right thigh and be warned!' "

Rahotep's hand fell to brush across that now faint scar, covered save for a finger's breadth by his short warrior's kilt. And the hidden meaning in that warning was clear in his mind. It was Unis's spear that had made that scar years ago during a lion hunt. Unis had been noisily remorseful for his clumsiness, a clumsiness that had never been explained to the satisfaction of either Methen or Rahotep. If Unis now ruled in Semna—and so in Nubia—that fact alone would explain both the captain's ignorance of his father's death and the hasty burial. Something was badly amiss. Rahotep turned to Kheti with crisp orders.

"This command is now yours. Send me Kakaw with filled waterskins. Runner, take your ease here and come on in the morning with the Scouts."

He thought he might have to argue against Kheti's protests, but the underofficer only nodded and called for the archer Kakaw, a noted tracker who had served as a messenger and knew the desert paths by day or night.

"Be sure, Lord," Kheti said as Rahotep, a waterskin thong cutting into his shoulder, prepared to leave, "we shall make a quick march to Kah-hi. There are those here—and there— who are your men in all ways."

It was midmorning when Rahotep sighted the palm trees marking the fields about the post of Kah-hi. He sketched an answer to the sentries' salute. Within the shadow of the gate another man stood waiting. He stepped forward, catching Rahotep by the shoulders and drawing him into the half embrace of close friends.

"It is well with you, boy?" He studied the drawn young face under its mask of trail dust, noting with approval the other's assured bearing and his unconscious aura of authority —as worn by a man not only used to giving orders, but also understanding well the reason for giving them.

"It is well with me, Methen. But it is not well—" He stopped in mid-breath, warned by the narrowing of the older officer's eyes. "I have come at your summoning," he ended more formally.

"There should have been an earlier summoning and not from my lips." Methen revealed a flash of anger.

But it was not until they were in Rahotep's private quarters that Methen, leaning against the wall by the bathing slab while the captain ladled the welcome water over his parched skin, spoke crisply and to the point.

"Unis had taken into his hands the gold seal of office. He controls Semna and Nubia for the time being. Now he plays a waiting game—"

"A waiting game?"

"One of Prince Teti's captains came at once. It is rumored that his lord follows him closely. The Lady Meri-Mut has received this captain in the inner courtyard twice. Unis has sent messages to all commandants of border forts. They are to detach ten men here, twenty there, ready for some unknown service when the Viceroy orders—"

"Messengers to the forts! But here at Kah-hi—surely Ham- set could not have kept secret such news!" Rahotep drew the towel back and forth about his thin middle, frowning. True, he had been out on two patrols during the past thirty days, once spending ten days away from the fort. But in Kah-hi quarters were atop one another. It was impossible to keep any secrets from eyes or ears. And he knew of old how not only truth, but also the most extravagant rumor, spread from man to man as fire licks across a plain of withered grass.

"It seems that Kah-hi was overlooked in this general diffusion of important news," commented Methen dryly. "Your supply train came in yesterday—that would have brought Hamset some knowledge. But—officially he had heard nothing before my own arrival. It was only when I did not hear from you that I discovered what had been arranged."

Rahotep smiled wryly. "Unis takes the precautions of an elephant hunter to steal upon a flea. Does he believe that I shall gather a host and march upon Semna to wrest Ptahho- tep's seal from his finger—?" But his smile faded as he watched Methen's sober face. "He can't!" he protested. "To think that is sheer stupidity, and Unis cannot be accused of that!"

"Unis is not stupid; he is only human. He does, as all of us, judge others' motives by his own. It is what he would do if he stood in Kah-hi and you sat in Semna. Why do you think you have been so long assigned to Kah-hi?"

"I am a captain of Scouts, we patrol the border, and Kah-hi is the first fort to front the Kush—" But Methen was shaking his head, and his expression suggested that he had expected brighter wits in his protege.

"Kah-hi is the least of all the border forts, the one most exposed to danger. Should the Kush arise in force and overrun this territory—as they have done in the past and will doubtless do many times

in the future until we have a Pharaoh strong enough to teach them wisdom—Kah-hi would speedily cease to be. And among all the Nubian forces the losses are the greatest among the Scouts."

Rahotep put one hand against the water-splashed wall. He felt a little sick and dizzy, as if a mace had crashed against the side of his skull.

"My father sent me here." His voice was hardly above a whisper.

"You have lived five years on the border," Methen replied. "There are venomous creatures hidden in the sands of Semna's gardens—as the Viceroy himself discovered at last. A man can defend himself against the Kush. Against such secret sand creepers and those who may plant them in his path, he has a lesser chance. Ptahhotep may have saved your life by seeming to agree to throw it away—"

The sickness that had been a bitter taste in the captain's mouth ebbed. Methen's tone was measured, his words well chosen. Now Rahotep clung to the hope that he spoke the truth. His father had been aloof, but there had been no dealings between them in the past that had suggested that the Viceroy had a twisted or evil nature. One could better believe that he had deliberately sent his younger son into an open danger to protect him from a more subtle peril at home.

Perhaps that stab of suspicion and the relief that had followed with Methen's words sharpened the captain's wits, for another thought came so quickly that he shared it with the older officer.

"A son who did not come to mourn his father upon the tidings of his death could be rumored a traitor—could be accused of lingering to make mischief—" Rahotep dropped the towel and kicked it away, reaching for a fresh kilt to buckle on. As he slid his dagger home in the belt sheath, he heard Methen laugh softly.

"You have not filled your head with sand after all, boy. But I also do not doubt that Hamset may have received certain orders with his supplies—"

Rahotep had taken up his baton-flail; now he swung around to face the other. His usually well-curved lips were set in a thin line, giving his face some of the remote sternness of the forgotten statue in the ruined fort by the river.

"Hamset's orders are for the officers under his command. But if I turn over to him my baton-flail, he no longer commands me and dares not stand between me and the outer gates of Kah-hi."

Methen folded his arms across his broad chest, and Rahotep braced himself for a hot retort. To Methen, the warrior's life was the best one. He would hardly support the captain's resignation from service.

But instead he was nodding. "I could wish you were leading a company when you reach Semna. But there are those there who have not forgotten bread eaten in the past, nor where true allegiance lies."

" 'Fight for his name, purify yourselves by his oath, and ye shall be free from trouble. The beloved of the king shall be blessed; but there is no tomb for one hostile to Pharaoh; and his body shall be thrown into the waters.' "

"It is so said," Methen echoed.

"But"—Rahotep pointed out the obvious—"where is there a Pharaoh to serve? I take no oath to Unis!"

Methen smiled. "To that also we may find an answer in Semna. But the road lies open to our feet, and Re anchors His sky boat for no man. We must be on our way before sundown."

The elderly commandant of Kah-hi did not reach for the baton Rahotep extended. His face, seamed by years into a pattern of sun wrinkles and skin-over-bone, showed little expression. His eyes, heavy-lidded, rose neither to his youthful subordinate nor to Methen.

"There comes a time," he spoke meditatingly, "when a man is no longer pulled hither and thither by ambition or desire. I )reams die and take with them some of our fears—so that one is empty of both. I, Hamset, hold this fort of Kah-hi and do what I can also to hold back the Kush. What care I for the problems of greater lords and captains? The Viceroy is dead. I have no order over any seal concerning you. Go as you wish, Captain. It is fitting that a son bid a last farewell to his father. Who am I to interfere in other matters? You are detached from Kah-hi in all honor—here you have served ably and well. And you are also authorized to take with you an archers' guard of your own choosing—" His voice trailed into silence, but when Rahotep would have thanked him, he held up a forbidding hand.

"Go your way but tell me nothing, Captain. I am the commandant of a small and well-nigh-forgotten post, and that position I would keep until I depart to the horizon. I have no official word concerning you—and to strange stories that may have been whispered in a man's ear hinting this and that I am deaf. But you do well to march out of Kah-hi before I am forced to take other action. May the fortune of Re be with you—you have been a good officer, young and foolhardy at times after the fashion of youth, but nevertheless you have earned your bread here."

He did not even raise his eyes when Rahotep gave him a last salute, so perhaps he never knew that Methen granted him the same recognition. And he did not appear later when, after the arrival of Kheti and the rest of Rahotep's company at the fort, the young captain chose his ten men. All of them were young, all were without wives or families in the quarters to tie them to Kah-hi. And they marched from the fort two hours before sundown without seeing Hamset again.

The leopard cub traveled in a bag, the thongs of which were slung over Rahotep's shoulder. None fed or tended him save the captain, so that while he snarled and spat at most of the men, he began to give a grudging respect to the one who carried him, and at last willingly allowed himself

to be handled and suitably caressed behind the ears and under the jaw like a tame cat.

They did not reach Semna until the fourth day, though Rahotep pushed the pace. The vast western fort with its thirty-foot walls had been finished some three hundred years before. Then the Pharaoh had ruled from the delta in the north beside the bitter waters to Kerma in the hot lands of the far south. Now there was no king in Egypt save the Hyksos lord in his delta city of Avaris, and in

Nubia

The gate sentries were brusque. Rahotep guessed that if they had been a little more sure of their ground, he might have been turned away. That they were not sure was a small indication that Unis might still be two-minded concerning his half brother's importance—or else not expecting any bold move on Rahotep's part.

Kheti's hand rested lightly on his belt ax as he looked about him speculatively.

"It is always good to pay respect to the dead," he commented, "but even the Great Ones do not demand that a man lay his unguarded hand within the jaws of a wild lion. It might have been well, brother, to have set yourself a more northern goal than this fort." His nostrils widened as he drew in a deep breath. "There is a smell about this place which alerts the wary."

The fortress troops with their tall shields of red-and-white- spotted cowhide, their spears and slings, were in contrast to the lean, dark desert coursers among whom Rahotep had lived so long, and he found himself estimating how well they might stand up against a determined Kush dawn rush.

Rahotep's company, rounding a storehouse to come to the Hall of Judgment, stopped short to survey in open wonder a light vehicle being driven slowly back and forth. Two hundred years earlier the Hyksos had broken the Egyptian army with their ruthless chariot charges, riding over demoralized companies who had never faced horses before. Since then, the princes of Thebes and the southern nomarchs had acquired similar horse troops. But in Nubia they were still unknown.

The stallion in the harness of the light two-wheeled cart shook his head and blew impatiently, the plumes on his metal head crest bobbing up and down.

"There is a proper way to give wings to the feet!" Kheti exclaimed. "Plant those along the border and Haptke will be overrun before he has time to think up any naughtiness. Aah, brother, what a deal of sand slogging they would save a man—"

"Save that those wheels need a road of sorts to follow," observed the captain. The chariot—and its horse—was a marvel right enough, and one that at another moment he would have been content to examine carefully. But the identity of the chariot's master was now a question of importance to his own future.

"Teti is here!" Methen's whispered warning answered that question.

With only a second's hesitation, Rahotep marched forward, his men falling in step behind him. They reached the portal of the hall, and the keeper on duty there arose from his stool, his wand of

office out as a barrier.

But as Rahotep brought his baton down, bearing the wand earthward, the man stepped aside nimbly with a half grin. It was plain that, like the sentries at the gate, he was not yet ready to stand against Ptahhotep's younger son.

The sound of raised voices reached the small party as they came into the central hall.

"—in the Name of Pharaoh" someone was saying with that dipped accent that Rahotep had heard in his mother's speech, in Hentre's, and in Methen's. Plainly a northerner spoke.

"The Lord Ptahhotep has departed to the west—"

And there was no mistaking that voice either. Rahotep frowned. As a small child, he had been overawed by the Lady Meri-Mut's autocratic brother, Pen-Seti, Chief Priest of Anu- bis. As a growing lad he had distrusted the lean dark man with his fanatic's eyes, his iron self-control. And, upon his own banishment from Semna, the captain had known his distrust to be well founded.

Unis had shown little liking either for his uncle in those boyhood days, but they might well have joined forces now. Rahotep believed this was true as he studied the group standing before the empty high seat at the other end of the hall.

Unis, Rahotep decided critically and with an inner satisfaction, had not worn well. Accustomed to the fine trained bodies of the Scouts, the captain found the rounded plumpness of his half brother an indication of softness—of body, if not also of will and spirit. His brother's belly bulged over the richly ornamented belt of his sheer outer audience skirt, and his heavy wig was thick with scented oil, making an extra wide frame for his broad, flat-featured face.

He was accompanied by Pen-Seti, the priest's tall frame bending a little forward as if he were some runner set on the mark.

The

Unis, Pen-Seti, and—Teti! The rebel Nubian prince was seated on a stool, leaning back against one of the blue lotus- carved pillars, his handsome face, with its sparkling eyes alert to the slightest move, turned to the scene as if his host had arranged it for his amusement.

Fronting this triumvirate was a stranger. By his dress he was a high-ranking officer. But the insignia heading his baton, the symbol painted on the corselet of leather reinforced with bronze strips that he wore, was not known to the Scout captain. On seeing him, however, Methen's breath hissed between liis teeth. He pushed forward to stand arm to arm with Rahotep.

"You dare to defy our lord?" the stranger was demanding with heat as Rahotep's party advanced. "Not so." That was Pen-Seti speaking in a rush of words intended to overwhelm his hearers. "The message which you bore hither was for the Lord Ptahhotep. To the Lord Ptahho- tep has it been delivered. Your mission is accomplished, Lord Nereb, as you may truthfully report to him who sent you. That the Lord Ptahhotep may no longer be interested in the affairs of Nubia—or of those of Egypt—is no man's fault."

"Aye, your message bore my father's name—to my father's tomb it has been taken." Unis smiled slyly. "Thus all dispute is ended, for that which has been sealed unto the Lord Ptahhotep is his alone."

"You hold by the letter and defy the spirit!" The strange officer's gaze went from face to face, resting for a second or two longer upon Prince Teti. "Beware lest Pharaoh takes another view—"

"Do you speak in the name of Apophi?" retorted Pen-Seti. "For to our knowledge the king of the Hyksos holds the north, and what that alien despoiler of the gods orders is no concern of ours!"

"I speak in the name of the Pharaoh Sekenenre, the Beloved of Re, who, seated upon the great throne, holds forth the flail for his enemies, the crook for his people. I am the mouth of the Lord of the Two Lands, a runner for the Son of Re—"

Teti yawned and allowed his gaze to wander to the far wall, where he stared with the intentness of an artist at a very ordinary painting of birds among marsh reeds.

The audience, if audience it was, came to a sudden end as Unis, looking past the stranger, caught sight of Rahotep. His sly smile contorted into a scowl. And so marked was his surprise and displeasure that the Lord Nereb half turned to see who stood at his back.

"What do you here?" spat Unis.

"My duty, brother. Is it not seemly that a man's son follow him to the tomb in all honor?" "My father is buried. You are overlate in your duty—"

"Your messenger was late, brother, so late that he did not arrive at all. Perhaps he was met by a Kush arrow instead of by my men. At Kah-hi, the raiders sniff close to the trails. But nevertheless I am here."

"Where there is no place for you! Return to your Kah-hi from which you had no right to depart without orders."

Rahotep walked forward. The leopard cub opened its eyes to stare at Unis unblinkingly. When its master stopped a spear-length away from Unis, it mouthed a hiss. Rahotep surveyed his brother slowly, from the perfume-matted ceremonial wig to those plump feet that had never done a full day's march, and back again—just as he might examine a recruit being paraded before him for the first time. Five years ago Unis had been one of the powerful adults whose assurance had made his younger brother feel inferior. But at this meeting Unis no longer held that advantage.

"We have not seen your arrows in flight among ours, brother." Deliberately he used the familiar address of equality, knowing how it must rasp the other. "He who gives orders to a warrior wears also the plume upon his own head—"

"Impudent fool, you speak to the Viceroy!" Pen-Seti's long neck bobbed forward. His shaven head with its beak of nose had the outline of a winged carrion eater. "Guard your tongue, lest this noble lord forget the tie of blood—"

But Unis had been stung. He was in no mind to let another speak for him. His fleshy fingers darted out and snatched from his half brother's hand the captain's baton.

"No officer are you in my service, Rahotep! Look now to your own holding, Shadow Hawk!" He laughed with the same old high whinny.

"Now"—one word tumbled over another from Unis's lips, so eager was he to be done with them —"the audience is finished." He turned to Prince Teti. "The pleasure garden awaits us, Lord." With his hand familiarly on the Nubian noble's arm, he went out of the hall.

Kheti snickered. "A duck waddles poolward, Lord. Have we now your permission to go elsewhere?" He accented the deference to Rahotep.

The young captain laughed shortly. "Since I am no longer your officer, it would follow that you no longer need my permission for any act." He flexed his empty hand. It felt odd. To leave his baton in Hamset's holding would have been right and proper. To be so summarily deprived of his command by Unis aroused a smoldering anger he was not soon to forget.

"It takes more than a fancy stick in your hand to make an officer, Lord. And it takes other than the Lord Unis to break one," the Nubian replied calmly.

"You are also son to the Lord Ptahhotep?" It was the Lord Nereb from the north who broke in eagerly.

"This is the Lord Rahotep, son to Ptahhotep and to the Lady Tuya, heiress of the Striking Hawk Nome," Methen began, but Rahotep would have none of that.

"I am Rahotep, but beyond that nothing now, not even a captain of Scouts."

"Yon remain the son of Ptahhotep," persisted the officer. "Are you of a like mind with your brother, that Pharaoh does not rule in Nubia now?"

"If there is again a Pharaoh— Is rumor true then, has a prince of Thebes taken the double crown and would move against the Hyksos?"

"It is true. He has sent forth his messengers to summon an army. But here I find only a dead man to answer—"

"Your message has been rightfully delivered to Ptahhotep, in whose name it was sealed." They had forgotten Pen-Seti, but the priest's glare went from the royal messenger to Rahotep. "Anubis guards His own." He pulled his shawl about his bony shoulders and strode off.

"There was authority for raising troops in the name of Pharaoh in that message?" asked Methen. "To my belief, aye."

Rahotep smoothed the fur between the cub's ears. The little one gave a muted purr. Rahotep was beginning to think, to form the shadow of a wild plan. A shadow plan to serve a shadow lord. But

dare he attempt it? He smiled at the Lord Nereb.

"Within these walls my hospitality is limited, Lord. But still have I some claim on shelter. Will you be my guest this night?"

Chapter 3

INTO THE JACKAL'S JAWS

There were four of them in that small, windowless room, and outside its single door lounged two of the archers who had accompanied Rahotep from Kah-hi. An elderly man in the dress of a scribe sat on the one stool, his back against the wall, his tired face very sober. Hentre, who had faithfully followed his nomarch's fortunes to the end, who had remained in a foreign land to serve his lady and her son afterwards, was realizing in that moment the slowness of age just when he wished to give his best.

"The message roll was sealed into a jar—"

"And placed within the tomb chamber itself?" Rahotep demanded impatiently. If that had been done, there was no hope at all for his sketchiest of plans.

But Hentre and the Lord Nereb shook their heads in a duet of negation.

"I arrived too late," the royal messenger said. "The Lord Ptahhotep's inner tomb chamber had already been sealed."

"So the jar was set in the mortuary chapel before the eye window of the Watcher." Hentre took up the report once more.

"In the mortuary chapel—" Rahotep moved on his pile of mats, his eyes closed as he tried to pull from the depths of memory a vision of a place he had only visited once and then so worn with grief that he had had little attention for his surroundings.

The local tombs of noble families were cut in the cliffs on the western wall of the river valley. There was a settlement there of those whose lives were spent in serving the dead, the embalmers, the coffin makers, the professional mourners, the priests of Anubis, the guards who warded off tomb robbers.

Ptahhotep's tomb was a fine one, with separate chambers for members of his immediate household, and a maze of passageways, most with dead ends, designed to thwart robbers. But flat against the cliff, blocking off the sealed and concealed entrance, was the mortuary chapel where sacrifices would continue to be offered in the names of those who slept within.

"It must be done tonight." The captain opened his eyes.

Hentre stirred and held up a protesting hand. "They will be alert for such a move, Lord. It will but give them the excuse they seek to pull you down—"

Rahotep got to his feet. "I go as a son to visit his father's tomb. I go alone—what evil can they possibly impute to that?"

Methen nodded, but Hentre still shook his old head doubtfully.

"If you go alone, Lord, they can and will impute any manner of evil to you—and who may bear witness on your behalf? Let me—"

"Not so!" Kheti, too, arose and stretched wide his arms. "I am my lord's shield bearer in battle, and this is in a manner a battle. Do you go now, brother?"

"I go alone," the captain repeated stubbornly. "Ptahhotep's son am I. If I take what has been sealed unto him, the Watcher may understand. If we come in a body to steal— then we are in a measure what they would term us—despoilers of a tomb."

l ie threw that squarely at Kheti. The Nubian gave lip service to Amon-Re, but as a Nubian he called upon the god of his race—Dcdun—in moments of stress. His customs, save where they were overlaid by the uses of the army with its Egyptian influences, were not basically those of the Two Lands. But he could understand the belief in the Watcher, who dwelt within the tomb but looked out upon the world through a chapel window. Rahotep thought that what he intended to do, though it would be close to sacrilege and could so be claimed against him, might be condoned by that Watcher within—just as he was also certain that this was his task alone, a duty that could not be shared.

And so in the end he managed to break down Kheti's resistance, though the Nubian insisted upon escorting him as far as the outposts of the necropolis, the place of the dead.

There were flickering lamps in some of the village houses. But the cliffs, with their awesome array of tombs and chapels, were a black line across the sky, merging one darkness with another.

"The patrol drinks deep tonight of the funeral wines, as is their due," Kheti said. "The Lord Unis may have treated the Lord Ptahhotep with unseemly haste in escorting him so swifdy to his other home, but he did not skimp on the feasting. And there may come other things out of the desert to seek the bounty of the offerings. Loosen your dagger, brother, and look twice at any shadow—"

Rahotep clung to the shadows, but he did not slink. Should he be discovered by a priest of the patrol, he determined to demand an escort to the chapel. Such ill fortune would prevent his plan from working, but it might save his life.

The necropolis was as barren as the desert. No wind whispered in a palm crown or rustled through grass. The shadows of rocks lay as long black fingers and threatening fists across his path. A jackal bayed the rising moon. Rahotep's right hand rested above his heart, pressing painfully into the flesh the hawk amulet he wore on a chain about his neck. Anubis, the Seeker, the Jackal,

who guarded the doors of the West, this was Llis domain. But Horus, the Hawk, flew over the desert lands, where the Jackal must pad in the dust. And tonight Rahotep believed he had more to fear from the malice of men than the displeasure of any Great One.

His sandal soles scuffed as he come upon stone pavement, the road leading up to the chapel. The scent of incense, of dying flowers, hung here, growing more noticeable as he advanced. Ahead was the gleam of a lamp, one of the small saucer type for the table of sacrifice. He hesitated for a long moment, listening. So small a lamp must be refilled often, which meant an attendent priest— unless such a guardian had shortly left. And there was no way of entering the chapel save by the road he was on—no hiding place from which he could spy. Rahotep kicked off his sandals, not only for reasons of reverence; bare skin on stone and sand was noiseless.

The captain stood now between the two slabs of red granite forming the door sides. The smell of the offerings was almost fetid in the airless interior. And the morsel of light played upon the painted walls, giving life and color to a face here and there or meaning to an inscription. But he could see no priest on duty.

Slowly Rahotep faced the west wall, his eyes in the restricted light searching for the square opening that must be there. His mouth was suddenly dry and parched. He rubbed his damp hands over the kilt on his thighs. So had he felt upon the occasion of his first assault of a Kush village. But he moved forward.

And his change of position showed him a glint of reflection from within that window. Because he had to, Rahotep raised the lamp from within a nest of withered garlands and held it high enough to see those stern features of a well- known face.

The sculptor Ikudidi was a true artist. He had wrought in stone not only the outward form of the Lord Ptahhotep as he had been in the prime of his vigorous manhood, but had also caught the quality of the man himself. Rahotep's breath caught in his throat. This—this was his father! Then, in a flick of the wavering lamp light, that moment of recognition was past. He saw nothing but an outstanding work of art; the man was gone.

The inlaid eyes gleamed in the light; the lips were set in a serene thread of half-smile. Ptahhotep, as he had been, watched those who came to pay him remembrance. But Rahotep, shivering, put back the lamp, noting only half-consciously that it was close to winking out entirely. He would always believe that more than just the graven Watcher had greeted him for that revealing instant.

To the stone face he gave a warrior's salute to his commander. Then he looked about him for what he had come to seek. Hentre had described it—an urn taken hastily from the stock of a dealer in canopic jars. It would have a jackal's head for a stopper. There it was, between two wine beakers on the altar. His hand had fallen upon it when he was startled by a shout of outrage and anger from behind.

Reflexes trained to hair-trigger alertness by his border life saved Rahotep in that instant. He sensed rather than saw that figure springing at him from the doorway. And he had just time enough to counter that rush with a wrestling trick taught him in archers' exercises. Linen, a priest's shawl or long skirt, tore with a loud sound. And in the moment the lamp went out.

Rahotep exerted his full strength and hurled the other from him. He groped on the altar, spilling from it in his haste the offerings, his fingers dabbling in foodstuffs and dead garlands. Then he had the jackal's head under his palm, and a second later the jar was tight in the circle of his arm.

But his assailant had been quick of thought, too, for his voice, raised in a call for help, rang out from the door of the chapel. That would bring the guard, and Rahotep would have no defense against evidence of the despoiled altar.

The captain threw himself at the door, guided by a shaft of moonlight. But the priest was valiant, strong in his righteous anger. He was waiting, and hampered by the jar, Rahotep could only chop with the edge of his flat hand at the other's neck, a barbarian trick, one Kehti had learned from a river sailor and that he swore might be fatal.

A sharp pain scored Rahotep's shoulder. But the priest had gone down, his dagger clattering from his hand on the pavement. And, before the tomb guardian could stagger up again, the captain was running, heading away from the road of the dead toward the open country with only the vaguest idea of the territory ahead.

There were torches moving in the tomb servants' village. Rahotep listened to the shouting of the guards contemptuously. Had he been in command back there, there would be far less noise and more speed in spreading out a net of men to snare a fugitive. But he should thank Horus that they were such bunglers.

For several minutes Rahotep ran lightly, the impetus of his initial good fortune carrying him on. Then he was aware of blood flowing down his side, a sticky flood over his crooked arm and the jar he cradled. His bare foot came down upon a sharp stone, and the pain made him flinch, twisting his ankle awkwardly so that his smooth lope was reduced to a hobble.

All about him were tempting hiding places, but he did not know the ground as well as those who pursued him did. He might well take shelter in a trap. It was better to keep moving, even at his hampered pace. His path took him away from the cliffs, angling toward the river. Now he caught a glimpse of torches bobbing before him there. Would they uncover Kheti? He doubted whether any tomb guard could match the Nubian Scout in trail lore, especially at night. But he was also certain that Kheti would not leave the vicinity of the necropolis until he was sure of his captain's fate.

Meanwhile, Rahotep leaned against a rock outcrop and forced himself to logical thinking. He dared not return to

Semna in his present state. And to approach any of the villas of the nobles on the outskirts of the fort-city was to ask for arrest. As far as he knew, only Methen and Hentre within the territory would give him aid or shelter, and neither could protect a fugitive against the power of Unis.

His progress was in a broken zigzag as he made his way from one projecting bit of stone to the next. And the intervals in which he paused to steady himself against each outcrop grew longer in spite of his determination to keep going. That line of torches along the river reached now almost to the outer gates of Semna. In a few moments that refuge would be closed against him. Rahotep flogged his memory of the great fort, of the outlying villas, of all that lay before him in the general

northern direction. And his uncertainty grew. If he kept on, he would be herded away from the river, backed into the scrub land that bordered the desert proper. Then they could track him down at their leisure.

He pressed his right hand tightly against the throbbing slash on his shoulder, trying to stem that steady flow of blood. The priest had not killed, but he had struck better than he knew. Now when Rahotep watched those torches, they seemed to swing and circle like awakened birds in the air, and his lungs labored with the effort he made. But still tight against him he held the sealed jar.

As he wedged himself in an angle between two blocks of stone, using their strength to remain on his feet, he heard something new—the angry chattering of a baboon warning against invasion of its hunting lands. Rahotep shook his head —a baboon? The haziness that had first attacked his sight now jumbled his thoughts. A baboon—that had some meaning.

Then he fought his weakness, the fuzziness that wreathed him in. Kheti! Kheti's warning from the time they were lads evading Rahotep's scribe-tutor. And he hissed softly in return, a warm relief flooding through him. A shadow that had more breadth and strength than any real shadow flowed up to him, and the firm grip of strong hands closed about him. He flinched from the touch on his shoulder.

"Be easy, they have marked my hide somewhat," he said, half laughing in sheer relief. Kheti's answering comment in Dedun's name was more curse than petition.

"Do you know where we are?" Rahotep asked.

"Near to the shrine of Amon-Re, brother. But they are between us and Semna or the river." "Amon-Re!" Rahotep straightened. A hope, small and weak, but still a hope, came to life.

Amon-Re was the patron of Thebes, and the priests of His shrine had had, in the past, strong ties with the northern city that had been the capital of Egypt. Would they not favor a Pharaoh ruling there now?

Anubis was strong, but Amon-Re had greater power. It would depend upon the high priest—a timid man, or one who did not wish to dispute Unis and Pen-Seti, would be of no service. On the other hand, a Voice of Amon who was jealous of his own might welcome a chance to stand up to Pen-Seti. It was a gamble to be sure, but this whole venture was a throw of Senet sticks in the sight of the Great Ones.

"We shall go to the shrine—" Rahotep pushed himself away from the stones. He reached for a hold on Kheti's shoulder to steady himself, and then urged the other to move. Who was the Voice of Amon now? So much rested upon that single question. In the five years since he had left the Viceroy's court there could have been many changes.

The shrine light in the temple was larger and brighter than the lamp of the mortuary chapel. But the shadowy interior seemed as deserted to Rahotep as he staggered up the steps with Kheti's support, to waver over the pavement of the main aisle.